Convergence
• • • Convergence is an upcoming crossover fighting game developed and published by , with no set release date. It centres around "The Convergence", a multi-universal incident that had forcefully brought together various individuals into a single, unstable realm called The Convergence Point. The game is set to come out on the Playstation 4 and the TimeStrike Falcon. The game's characters, and most of its environments, are three-dimensional and cel-shaded in a similar style to that of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The human characters in particular are more or less realistically proportioned, but the aesthetics and visual effects of everyone wildly vary, reflecting how this crossover brings people from across different worlds and dimensions. While there are some out-there characters present, they are tame compared to the environments, which are way less grounded in reality. The nature of the Convergence Point is that it reacts to its inhabitants' thoughts and feelings, so some stages might look fairly realistic while others may incline towards dark and exaggerated, or cartoony and bright. They all share a common aspect in that the player might see ripple-like effects, warps, glitches, and tears in reality that fade in and out throughout matches, showing the flexible nature of the dimension. Menus are very streamlined thanks to Chronia's work organising everything, possessing Chronia's impossibly neat handwriting imposed on rounded, clean backgrounds with glowing white borders. She can always be seen somewhere, usually in the corner of the screen, performing little animations and giving occasional dialogue as the player goes through the game's menus. In fact, she appears a bit differently to the other characters in the way that she has much more cartoony proportions. Upon player interaction, however, the nature of the Convergence Point gives way, having its buttons shift around, become distorted, shake and flash cosmic colours whenever touched. Chronia will quickly fix the issue as soon as the player's hand is off the affected area, though. In menus that Chronia has less influence over, they are way more distorted and chaotic. One of these menus is The Shop, which is managed by Friday Blake - rather than being in the corner, she's more prominent and takes up a fair bit of the left half of the screen. She's not as good at managing the menu as Chronia is, so instead of ordering everything, she emphasises the chaos and distortion on items that she wants you to buy. Generally, she employs some crazy effects throughout your shopping experience. Some remnants of Chronia's organisation can be seen throughout it, though; it seems as though she had sorting through some of it before Friday came in and shooed her away. As mentioned above, every playable character has distinct visual effects, as well as unique movements and animations that characterise the character being played. To showcase the personality of characters, matches will begin with cinematic intros for each participant, followed by a exchange between the two before the match actually starts, a la Injustice 2. These quick conversations can last from one to four lines, but they always alternate between the two parties present. Round victories are also marked with unique animations; a celebration or taunt for the person who won the round, and a getting-back-up or second wind for the person who lost the round. When the round is won, a special cinematic victory animation plays for the victor. As the animation ends, the footage will enter slow-motion that leads to a near-halt reminiscent of a splash art - another aspect taken from Netherrealm's fighting games. Diligent as ever, Chronia manages what is displayed on the screen during a match, though with some difficulty, as battle can be quite chaotic. She occasionally pops up on the upper left corner on the player's side of screen to give occasional commentary, mostly to point out things like low health, opportunities to attack, and a possible switch in strategy when the player is being curb-stomped. She frequently reacts to particularly devastating attacks, and sometimes expresses misfortune when the player is under a negative effect like being stunned or poisoned. She gets overjoyed when you win, and devastated when you lose - it seems she's pretty attached to you, especially since there's no executives to take her away. Of course, if the player finds all of her dialogue distracting or annoying, there is a slider in the game's options that controls how frequently Chronia pipes up, and another that maintains what exactly she focuses on talking about. If you turn the frequency slide all the way up, she'll blush and express even more attraction towards the player. If you turn it all the way down, she will constantly look dejected and have very unenthusiastic, verge-of-crying delivery when she finally gets to say something. Turning it back up, even just a little bit, will make her feel better, but she'll still take some time to cheer up - turning it back to a higher setting cheers her up faster. Convergence's gameplay takes after the classic fighting game formula. In matches, players are set in a 2.5D environment wherein characters engage in one-on-one-combat, the winning condition being the acquisition of two Round Victories. A round is won when the Health Meter of one player reaches zero; afterwards, spacing is put between the two opponents and the Life Meter of both parties are fully restored as the next round starts. When a character's Health Meter drops below 33%, they enter what's called a Brink Rush. When under this state, their attack power, movement speed, and Energy Meter regeneration increases proportional to how much Health the character has left. With lower Health, these boosts intensify. Brink Rush is also a prerequisite to being able to perform a Convergence Break, which is a powerful move that has the potential to turn the tide of the battle. Players have access to four Basic Attacks. These are labelled 1 ( or ♥), 2 ( or ♣), 3 ( or ♦) and 4 ( or ♠), each corresponding to different types of strikes; usually left-hand strike, right-hand strike, left-foot strike, and right-foot strike. There are different variations to these strikes depending on directional input, and through various combinations of these buttons, the player can perform strings of attacks, or Combos. The player can also use these to perform Skills, which are special moves unique to each character. Skills can range from projectiles to direct attacks, buffs to debuffs, and counters to evades. Performing Skills may or may not consume the Energy Meter. The player is able to Block attacks by holding a directional input opposite to where the attack is coming from. This reduces incoming damage taken by 75%. There are four different places an attack can hit you: low (an attack to the legs), mid (an attack to the torso), high (an attack straight to the head), and overhead (an attack coming from above). Blocking in a normal position will block mid to overhead attacks, Blocking in a crouch blocks low to mid attacks (it should be noted that crouching in general prevents the player from getting hit with high attacks altogether), and Blocking while in the air will only Block overhead attacks. By pressing or Right Shoulder, the player can perform a Grab, which has the character grab the target and throw them either forward or behind them depending on the directional input. Grabs go through Blocks, and can be interrupted if both players happen to perform a Grab at the same time. Aside from the Health Meter, the player also has an Energy Meter, which is divided into five Energy Bars. The meter is full at the start of the match, and constantly regenerates at +5 per second whenever it isn't being used. With or Left Shoulder active, the player can perform three actions by using up a portion of the Meter, called a Meter Burning. The Energy Meter Meter Burning a Skill will turn it into an Enhanced Skill, a more powerful version of the move. This consumes one bar. Performing a Meter Burn while your character is being caught up in a combo will execute a Combo Break, which saves the character from the combo. This consumes three bars. By holding and or Left Shoulder and Right Shoulder together with Brink Rush active, the player can activate their Convergence Break. This consumes all five bars. As the main gimmick of Convergence, the game has two buttons dedicated to portal-based abilities: and , or Left Trigger and Right Trigger. With either of these buttons held, the player is able to perform six different actions. / + or Left Shoulder/'Right Shoulder' + (♦) will Create a portal in the background near the player character. Normally, the portal is created right behind the character, but the player is able to create a portal a bit further away by adding a left or right directional input. Portals cannot be created while the player is performing a combo, a Skill, a grab, or is stunned. Additionally, the player cannot create a portal in the same spot where an enemy portal is. Portals will always be present on the field unless replaced, moved or destroyed. Every portal will look and act different depending on the character who summoned them. Portals also cost Energy Meter - Creating a portal normally costs one bar. Whenever the Energy Meter is used up by a portal, that portion of the meter will become temporarily Fatigued, which is denoted by the bar turning red. A fatigued bar can still recover energy, but it won't be able to be utilised by the player until it wears off. Fatigued Energy will last for three seconds. / + or Left Shoulder/'Right Shoulder' + (♠) will Close the portal. Unlike creating a portal, there is no cost or range limit to performing this action. / + or Left Shoulder/'Right Shoulder' + (♥) will execute a Portal Jump, given that the player is close enough to the portal corresponding to the command. If there is only one portal active, then the player will perform a Shortjump instead. A Shortjump, as the name implies, is a hasty short-ranged warp in the player's chosen direction by popping out of a swiftly-created exit portal. Shortjumping costs half of an Energy Bar. The direction a Shortjump is performed towards can be influenced by a directional input. This type of Portal Jump is called so because the range can easily be traversed with a simple sprint but is still a great way to close distance. If there are already two portals active, the player will jump to the location of the portal opposite to the entrance, without the cost of any Energy. This use of a Portal Jump, called Longjumping, has more defensive utility. / + or Left Shoulder/'Right Shoulder' + (♣) will activate the character's Portal Skill, which is an unique ability or attack utilising the player's portals that are designed to complement the character's play style and encourage portal use. What happens when there are no portals when this ability is activated will depend on the Portal Skill / + or Left Shoulder/'Right Shoulder' + Right Trigger will execute a Redirect, wherein the player generates a short-lived portal directly in front of themselves. This costs two Energy Bars. As the name implies, if a projectile or the opponent travels through it, they are passed through the portal and redirected somewhere else. You are able to direct the course of a projectile or opponent by adding a directional input afterwards, effectively forcing the projectile/opponent to Shortjump away from the player. By default, the projectile/opponent is simply "passed through" the player, being popped out into the area behind the player. If no input is given and two portals are already active, then the projectile/opponent will be redirected out the player's second portal. Whether the portal reappears back at the same spot it was before the block was executed or not can be decided by the player in the game's Options, but it defaults to the former. Clash is Convergence's primary game mode, as the purest form of its gameplay. In the matches that take place in this mode, the player fights against a single enemy controlled by either AI or another person, on a stage of the player's choosing. If both players choose different stages, the game will randomly pick between the two. To spice things up, the player is able to change up their matches using the Customise option, altering the parameters of either fighters and the conditions of the match. Once the player is done customising, they can save it as a preset - up to ten customisation presets can be saved. Convergence Ladder pits the player against a series of eleven pre-determined enemies in a progressive arcade ladder fashion. Each playable character has their own unique Character Ladder, each stage within them having added challenges that come as either customised match conditions, or optional Goals to reach. If all the goals of a stage have been completed, their next match will give the player a temporary bonus. Should the player lose enough battles, the Ladder will reset, forcing the player to play through everything again. The same thing will happen if the player drops out of a Ladder mid-match. The player can, however, drop out of a Ladder outside of matches in order to try a different one, and all of the player's progress of the Ladder that they dropped out from will be retained. The game also gives the option to manually reset the Ladder, should they fail to reach a Goal and want to start over. This game mode has four different difficulties, escalating the challenges of the Ladder the harder the difficulty is. Once the difficulty of a Ladder is set, the player cannot change it unless it resets. Harder difficulties also increase the amount of rewards the player gets. The difficulty can be changed if the player hasn't actually fought the first stage yet. Once all eleven opponents are defeated, the player gets to see a unique ending centred around the character they played as, involving them taking control of the Convergence Point. The Shop allows the player to buy cosmetic items, using Coins. Coins can be gained by winning matches in the Convergence Ladder. If the player has Competitive Points, they can be exchanged for such coins. The conversion rate is one coin per two Competitive Points. Unlike the rest of the game modes where the player can hear Chronia, The Shop is run by Friday Blake - the player will be showered in very witty, snarky dialogue by just spending time in The Shop alone. If Friday notices that you've been spending Coins on a particular type of item, she'll bump up the price of that kind by 10%, or even more! To Friday's chagrin, though, all items found in The Shop are cosmetic-only (for now) and do not affect the performance of the character like say, a weapon would. On rare occasions, she will offer a special 20% discount in exchange for defeating a specified character multiple times on Convergence Ladder or Online. There is currently only one type of item available: Skins. Skins will change the look of a character, and even some visual and audio effects. These changes are purely aesthetic and don't have much bearing on gameplay - they just look cool! A lot of the Skins pay homage to past incarnations, appearances, and lore of characters, which are given by reading the Skin descriptions. More Coming Soon! In this game mode, Online is where the player can truly test their skills against other people online. To enter an Online Match, they must select the Find Player button to begin searching for a person to play against. These matches take the form of virtually the same standard that Clash uses. After a match ends, both players can choose to agree to a rematch. If a player disconnects, then the other person will automatically win. If they wish so, the player can also view their Match Statistics in this mode. Competitive is a sub-game mode that the player can enter once they've played twenty normal Online Matches. A simple press of a button will activate this mode, and add various features to Online. Here, every player has a Rank, an assigned number that reflects the skill of the player attached to it. Winning Online Matches will grant the player Competitive Points, or CP, which increase the player's Rank and can be converted to Coins. The ranges of these Ranks form distinct Tiers. Everyone starts at the lowest Tier, but once a player's Rank becomes high enough, they ascend to the next Tier. Aside from making things more organised, Tiers also dictate how much CP a player can get, as higher tiers require an increasing number of CP to reach. The player is able to view their own Rank and Tier, as well as that of others, in the Leaderboard. The player is also able to see their three most played characters, which is calculated by the game every 10 matches. For each day that no Online Matches are played, their Rank will be decreased by 10. For a fair fight, players are only matched up with other players that are within a certain CP range of each other. The player can gain additional CP if they reach certain goals, i.e. winning both rounds, having more than 50% Health throughout the entire match, winning within one minute, and performing long combo strings. Unlike normal Online, manual rematches are not allowed due to potential abuse. If a player leaves the match, the other player will automatically win and will be granted half of the Tier's base CP reward. The player who left will get a 5% CP reduction, 20% longer queue times, and a 25% penalty to CP gain. These penalties will increase at an exponential rate with successive rage quits. Point Perils is a mode consisting of various minigames centred and themed around Convergence's colourful roster. There are no confirmed Perils at the moment. Each playable character has a specific fighting style, but there is some overlap; some characters are suited to focus getting in the opponent's face, while others may be more effective being patient in order to anticipate and counter attacks or maintaining distance and sustaining themselves. Some characters may even have special mechanics that completely set them apart from the others. Convergence has twenty confirmed playable characters as of now. A gallery of art (sans skins) created specifically for this game. ConvergenceLogo.png|The game's logo SudioConvergence.png|Sudio's art EnemyTanDoeConvergence.png|Enemy-Tan-Doe's solo art FanTanDoeConvergence.png|Fan-Tan-Doe's solo art TanDoeTwinsConvergence.png|The Tan-Doe Twins' art HitomiConvergence.png|Hitomi's art IsenloreAloneConvergence.png|Isenlore's solo art CainAloneConvergence.png|Cain's solo art CainAndIsenloreConvergence.png|Cain & Isenlore's art XenConvergence.png|Xen's art Stages that characters fight on are set in the Convergence Point's Nightmares. Nightmares are the manifestations of each of the characters' fears, insecurities, and inner demons, much to the mental exhaustion of everyone involved. Every Nightmare is mentally-linked to the individuals who give rise to it; negative feelings will cause Nightmares to become more violent and exaggerated, while positive or peaceful feelings will tone down the Nightmare, and even dispel it entirely. When multiple are near in location, Nightmares often fuse the negativity from these people into large hellish places, creating distinct parts that can be used to divide the realm. There are no confirmed stages as of now. *'6/24/19' - Page published, Hallow and Aurora revealed as playable characters. *'6/27/19' - Lander and Reese revealed as playable characters, Convergence Ladder expanded upon. *'6/28/19' - Father Trip, Hitomi, and Quinn Fooly revealed as playable characters. *'6/29/19' - Khaos, NULL, and Rhyse revealed as playable characters, Online & Competitive expanded upon. *'6/30/19' - Frink revealed as playable character, The Shop expanded upon, movesets readjusted. *'7/1/19' - Viven revealed as playable character, movesets readjusted. *'7/3/19' - Strafe revealed as playable character, movesets readjusted. *'7/4/19' - Movesets readjusted, "Misc" sections added to playable characters, The Shop expanded upon. *'7/5/19' - Alleyma and Morus revealed as playable characters, Visuals and Animation added. *'7/9/19' - Sudio revealed as playable character, Visuals & Animation and Roster expanded upon. *'7/10/19' - Cain & Isenlore revealed as playable character, movesets readjusted. *'7/13/19' - Tan-Doe Twins revealed as playable character. *'7/14/19' - Silver and Xen revealed as playable characters, Shop readjusted. *'7/16/19' - Original Artwork added, Stages expanded upon. *'1/7/20' - Skins for Sudio and Xen added. *'1/9/20' - Skins for Xen added. *'2/8/20' - Skins for Alleyma and Reese added, movesets readjusted. *'2/10/20' - Various errors fixed, Point Perils expanded upon. *'2/16/20' - Portal mechanics revamped, Shop expanded upon, Hitomi's art updated, movesets readjusted. *Due to the strange, reality-warping properties of the Convergence Point, any person will find it hard to remember any of events they had experienced in the dimension, let alone even entering it. This serves as an way to hand-wave any inconsistencies regarding characters knowing each other or behaviour and traits that may be present in this game but go unseen in another. *Convergence being available on the TimeStrike Falcon stems from Chronia's appearance within the game. **Furthermore, Chronia was originally going to be a short, exposition-spouting cameo, but this quickly got expanded upon, giving her a more prominent role as a meta guide and commentator. *Credit to , , , and for all but six pieces of character art found on this page. *A lot of the names given to the playable characters' combos are references to the respective characters' lore and canon. *There are a number of Skills that didn't make it to the final version of the playable characters' movesets: **Frink's Junk Crash used to be Envelope Spread, which had him fire a single, short-ranged spread of projectiles. **Frink's Mail Bomb used to be Mail Flurry, which had the same effect but didn't require for Cherry to drop something off. **Lander's Shove Blast used to be Reach Grabber, a medium-range command grab. **Lander's Blue Shell used to be Plasma Rounds, a simple projectile move. **Lander's Plasma Burster used to be Set Up Shop, an area-of-effect move that placed a vendor stand that boosted his stats. **Lander's Security Shooter used to be Mini Missiles, which involved a single explosive projectile. **NULL's Copy Skill used to be Astral Transfer, which allowed them to switch the consciousnesses of themselves and the enemy's. This was also originally given to Sudio (patterned after the songs Look Through My Eyes and Two Hearts) before being changed to Restive Field. **Strafe's Uprising used to be Pistol Pot Shots, which had him use his pistols to attack **Cain & Isenlore's First Aid used to be Central Barrage, which was a portal-less version of Shard Assault. **Cain & Isenlore's Mirror Surfing used to be Dark Reflection, which had Isenlore project a dark hologram of the enemy that fought for the player. **The Tan-Doe Twins' Summon Tentacle used to be Tick Tick, which would've summoned a black hole to draw in the enemy. Category:Games Category:Original Games Category:Original Articles Category:Crossovers Category:Crossover Games Category:Crossover Fighting Games Category:Mingo Category:Fighting Games Category:PlayStation 4 Games Category:Falcon titles Category:Rated C CERO Games Category:Rated T Games Category:Rated 12 Games Category:Rated M OFLC Games